


heat haze

by sonia (aquatulip)



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7150328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquatulip/pseuds/sonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>have you ever wondered what it is like to kiss an angel?</p>
            </blockquote>





	heat haze

he is tall: made of brambles, made of berries. there is sweetness in his marrow, but the armor that he places upon his frame is sharp, jagged. it threatens to slice delicate skin such as yours; it threatens to hurt, to  _ kill _ , but a threat is merely that and there is nothing damaging about his hands that are calloused and sit within your own. in the haze of the sunlight, if you lean back upon one elbow on the stone you are perched on already, you can make out the ethereal, soft outline of  _ wings _ . that makes sense to you, but you know that the midday sun is starting to get to you as you sit with him: bloodstained and sweating. in the heat haze, you pray for rain, for mist, for a puddle to cleanse you.

 

“ignis,” you say, tipping your head back as you feel a raindrop of sweat move down into the collar of your shirt. his hands are trembling like the wings of a captive moth; his touch is feather-soft yet so hesitant. then, upon hearing your voice, he becomes a viper sinking fingernails into your pliant skin. you are but prey to his touch. instead of wincing, you simply sit at full height and push back a strand of your hair; you bite down on the inside of your cheek. you let him ride this out: the fear, the anxiety, the weight upon his chest that threatens to collapse his ribcage. you do not say another word until his grasp begins to loosen again. the pain he inflicts upon you is not his fault. his hands could snap every bone in your body yet he  _ clings  _ to you. never could you abandon him on the battlefield. “he’s okay.” 

 

that’s all you can offer him; that’s all you have. “i… i watched him fall in battle.” his voice is wavering like it is a leaf caught in his throat and held there by the wind. “he can’t be okay… he can’t…” he looks as though he is going to come apart at the seams: as though he is pulling at the very threads that hold him together and ripping them away from one another until he is just a pile of string, of thread, of  _ nothing _ . you shift under the embrace of the sun until you can use your other hand as an anchor. you hook yourself around him at the base of his neck and you pull him down until his forehead rests against yours. 

 

sweat and blood mingle together on your skin; they make the touch slick, awkward. you think ignis is  _ glowing _ : golden, soft. “i got to him in time, ignis. i always will.” your voice is little more than a whisper at this point and his breath is coming out heavy and warm on your upturned face. with your eyes closed, you cannot see him, but you imagine how he looks with his brow furrowed: the creases between his eyes and on his forehead needing to be ironed out. you imagine that he is quivering at the brink of the end of the world and that you are the last tangible object holding him above the debris. “you can’t protect everyone.”  _ even though you do _ . “not all of them need protecting and not all of them want it to be  _ you _ taking hits for them.” your eyes flutter open to take in the way that his expression shifts from discomfort to worry and back again. you watch him as you might watch the flicker of a candle in a dimmed room. 

 

“i’ll protect everyone. i  _ have  _ to.” his eyes open to catch yours. you see his devotion in the openness of his gaze and you know that you are such a large part of his  _ everyone _ , and you feel as though you are floundering in shallow water. your feet can touch the bottom of the pool yet you are drowning, struggling. the strength in his gaze belies his timidness in nature. you want to tell him that he does not have to be strong if he needs to be weak, but those words are not gifts of honesty during a war. what you  _ need  _ for him to understand is that even if you are touched by his gestures, by his words, you do not need to be protected. you are not weak and you are not his liege. if you want to stand beside him, then you should be able to; your title has little to do with arrangements of the battlefield. upon that land, you are merely a chess piece on a chess board.

 

for now, you swallow those words. they will not be helpful to you as both of you sit there awaiting words that could destroy him, awaiting words that could restore him. “you did what you could.” you tell him as you stroke his hair. it is greasy and you would naturally recoil at the feeling if not for the situation, if not for the fact that it is him. it makes you think about how your own hair must look. he can look at you evenly like this with dirt in your hair, on your face, blood on your clothes. “you are required to protect siegbert. you can’t be everywhere at once on the battlefield.” you breathe steadily as his breath still comes out in huffs of hot air against your skin. it is uncomfortable in the heat of the day, but you withstand discomfort for him. there are more important things than how your skin  _ crawls _ when you feel the slide of sweat where your skin meets his. “close your eyes.”

 

you watch as confusion masks his face before his eyes slip closed: yours follows. the hand against the back of his neck shifts until you are holding both of his hands in your own. two sets of hands meet midst your bodies and you shakily breathe out before you speak. “gods watching over us. i understand that you have sent ignis as a fallen angel to watch over our land, but he is not capable of miracles. please allow for his father to draw breath from this earth, from this land.” your name slips from his lips, but you do not open your eyes; you tighten your grasp. “to the gods that watch us from your alcove, please do not take this life from us. a life does not equate to another life and i know that you are merciful. do not condemn us for this war.” your voice is steadier than you could imagine it; you sound as though you are drawing commands from the gods themselves. 

 

and perhaps for him, you would. 

 

“foleo…” he whispers again and your eyes are greeted by vivid olive green holding oceans. the tears streaming down his face were not there before, but now they flow freely. “don’t… don’t say that about me…” he says, running his thumb across the back of your hands. he touches each knuckle gently, but his gaze never falters from your own. “i’m not… i’m  _ nothing _ …” 

 

you feel the anger, but it does not boil  _ because  _ of him, instead it boils because no one has looked upon him to tell him that he is  _ everything _ . “no, ignis…” you shake your head, “you are wrong.” tears threaten to pool in your own crystal gaze. “ _ without you _ … there would be nothing. you are  _ so  _ special. i could not imagine a life without you gracing it with your gentleness.” you say, but that is not all that you wish you could say. there is something that hangs between you in the open air: something soft, something unspoken.  _ love _ and  _ bliss  _ could capture the feeling, but it is more akin to  _ devotion  _ and  _ reverence. that’s dangerous _ , you think as your lips curb his jaw. with armor laying between your bodies there is little room for passion, but gentleness is still a possibility. both of you cannot be gods, be angels, be immortal yet you toy with it as your lips build a bridge from his jawline to his cheek, tasting raindrops of sweat, of tears. his breathing is irregular as his chest rises and falls in a rapid blunder; his anxiety clings to his body and fills it up until it threatens to push against his frame expanding him until he could  _ float  _ back up to the heavens. 

 

if he ascends, then you will be taken with him as his hands cling onto you once again. your lips hover at the corner of his and he draws in a breath that sounds like a gasp and you feel feather- _ light _ as you sit before him. he clouds your brain and makes you feel  _ whole _ . the heat makes your head spin and ache, but you clear the fog away so that you may lay your lips upon his. each touch of your lips is another prayer to the heavens, is full of gratitude. “may i?” you ask him with your lips hovering over top his. and when he nods, you give him the gentleness built into your frame. you take yourself apart and let him kiss the innermost of your soul. 

 

it aches fiercely. it causes you to feel as though you are  _ burning _ , so you  _ know  _ that you are kissing a fallen angel, because you’ve never heard about kisses feeling this way. this is not how you ever expected your first kiss to feel; this is nothing that fairytales and storybooks tell. this makes you want to claw at your chest to free your heart. his lips are clumsy against yours, but they are needy. his lips whisper prayers against your own, spinning words out magnificently until he has provided his gods with all that they seek of him, within him. your trimmed fingernails dig into his skin and hold him captive. you separate and draw in ragged breaths. “a...again.” you plead with his breath still in your throat. he makes your knees weak and your head spin even faster than the heat. he moves in this time and this kiss is  _ light _ ; it only lasts as long as a sigh yet it is enough. 

 

it is with clasped hands, dry lips, and heaving chests that you receive the good news that his father is alive. both of you move then, slowly, with love hanging low in your bones and reverence hanging high in your lungs, back to camp with the rest of the party. touch tells what words cannot as you settle into your tent and heaven touches your eyelids with  _ sleep _ from exhaustion. when your eyes meet him in the morning light, you will see the outline of a halo to affirm yesterday. in the morning light, you cast another prayer to the heavens knowing that they are watching. 


End file.
